Dear me; 18

Another new journey is starting for you. High school is over and college is starting. Legal adulthood, new responsibilities and lots of hangovers. Please feel free to skip that last part though. Pony pitchers of vodka slime are not your friend.

College is a great time for you. It may just be the first time you'll make new friends since junior high school. It's also the perfect outlet for your creativity and you finally start to show how smart you are again! It's a good feeling to know that you are doing something you are good at. 

Don't worry about what anyone else thinks. You have the talent, skill and drive. Keep learning every technique you can and practice as much as possible. 

However, salons are not really the place for you so check inside every door and take as many opportunities as possible. Build a clientele and work for yourself, work for a distributor, be an educator.. There are so many options. 

On another note, if you can go out partying on school nights, you could probably be working more and getting school paid off. Just a thought. But you should definitely live a little too. Spend plenty of time with friends, it's important. 

With that said, the faster you pay off school the sooner you can save and do more of what you want!

And within this same year, you are done college. New knowledge, new friends, trips and adventures. This was a great year. And so many more great years are up ahead. 

Since I haven't mentioned it yet, I'd also like to ask that you get your drivers license. ASAP.

Later on you will wish you did sooner. I promise. Getting around isn't to hard anyway, but so many more jobs will be available if you can drive. 

Spending time with family is so important too. The family reunion will make great memories. Mud wrestling is good for the soul. 

Really good. 

And yes, my hair is a different color and length in almost every picture, I couldn't help myself. 

xoxo

Green thumb

Lately I've been having a bit of a plant obsession. I'm loving the idea of having some greenery around the apartment and having a container garden of useful veggies is great too!

 

Chad found this kits, possibly meant for children, but we couldn't really resist. You get everything you need to start the seeds. Recycled egg carton to grow in, soil, seeds and tags so mark what is growing in each cup.

We bought to kits. Veggies and evening flowers.

My vegetable kit has carrots, summer squash, mini watermelons, radish, green beans and cucumber.

 

And my favorite part, it took barely 1 week to go from this..

To this!

 

I'm also attempting to grow an avocado tree. By all accounts it is very simple, you just have to be patient. it can take 3-15 years to ever produce fruit, if it happens at all. I don't really mind though. As much as I would love to pick and eat my own fresh home grown avocado, it will be nice to have the tree around anyway.

 

If you wanted to try your hand at avocado growing as well, here's how -->

 

I have a few more trees, all store bought so they are bigger already and the have tiny fruit already!

This one is a mandarin orange tree. 

And this guy is a dwarf Meyer lemon tree. It even has a golf ball sized lemon already!

The last tree is one we got last year and brought inside over the winter. It seems to me that it was thriving more inside than it is outside now. I blame the *pot* smoking neighbours on their balcony. Damn humans!

For something a little different and to have some smaller plants inside, not just on the balcony, I got a cactus! I like it a lot. 

I also got a succulent. An Echeveria. It's cute and tiny and needs minimal care. 

Then I got 3 more cacti... I couldn't resist. They were just so pretty and colourful! And I feel that it's super unlikely I will kill them. Win-win in my book. 

And that's all. For now anyway. I'm planning to grow a few more things. I want lettuce and dill for sure, and maybe spinach as well. I wanted zucchini too but Chad says we don't have space. Party pooper.

Anyway, until next time. 

xoxo

Calgary comic expo finale; day 4

Last night after the show had ended we ventured out to one of the expo after parties with some other people from our hostel. It turned out to be much less party then we expected and we just went for dinner instead. 

For our fourth and final day at the show we had to fit in all the things we had yet to do. 

I wore my Yuna costume from last year again. 

We met Lindsay Elyse. She is a "professional" cosplayer and model. 

Took more pictures of awesome costumes while shopping and checking out art. I got a hat and T-shirt from one place and slytherin striped socks from another. 

Punk sailor scouts.

I've seen this one before. More than once. I still like it anyway though. And I've decided its a woman under there. That's actually one of the things I really love. Deciding what gender is hiding under the costumes that have people 100% covered. 

Chad in his " costume" hanging out with the super cool Spiderman car. 

One of the many things to see outside was the Viking camp. These guys and gals do this anyway, but they brought their whole camp, costumes, weapons and awesome talents to the show to share with everyone. I don't know to much about them but they seem to be very authentic. And they just look generally awesome.

To finish the show off we went to one last panel. The cosplay guests and the professor we saw before talked about getting into cosplay, favorite costumes, and anything else the audience asked about.

And that was it. It's all over now. 

xoxo 

Expo day 3

Saturday at the expo is always the busiest day. You can't escape the crowds, the lines are crazy and everywhere you look someone is taking pictures of someone else. It's a great day. 

Today I wore my Arya costume again and Chad brought out his Jedi. Everyone loves his costume, it suits him so well and he really fits the part. I was taking a picture of him with some other Star Wars costumes when all of a sudden there was a huge wall of people standing behind me also taking the picture. Paparazzi! Not really though. 

We didn't do nearly as much shopping as last year. I got a hat, t-shirt and a tiny adorable stuffed alpaca. I like him a lot. Chad got a few pieces of art from "Pot Smashers" and that was all. I did strongly consider a stitch onesie as well...

I  was quite sure that I would get pictures with other people from Game of Thrones today, but generally I would see a costume and then they would be gone before I could ask. I saw a group of 4 that were dressed as Jon Snow, Ygritte, Ned and Catelyn and they looked great. I really wanted a picture with them, I even chased after them, but they got away. I did manage to get a really awesome Robb Stark though. 

Later in the day we went over to the Big 4 building to see about meeting the cosplay guests and found that the lines were pretty reasonable. Generally speaking you wait in line, pay and get a print, they say hi, sign the print and it's over. Jessica Nigri ran out of prints just before we got up to her so we got pictures with her instead. We went to meet Monica Lee after as well. 

Here are a few costumes I really liked (and managed to get pictures of!) 

One of the few panels we went to, and the one with the longest line, was Tom Felton. If you've been living under a rock, he plays Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. He was great to listen to and had tons to say about his time on Harry Potter and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Naturally, he was nothing like his characters. At one point he said "I forgot to say, I just love the Canadian accent. It's so intoxicating." And then I swooned. 

To finish the day we went to watch the Costume contest. We always make a point of getting in line to see the contest. There are always really impressive things to be seen. Unfortunately, some of the people are only on stage long enough to run off the other side, stage fright and all. 

The winner this year was stitch!! One of my personal favourites. It was a great costume. And I'm a huge fan of stitch. 

More on the last day soon!

xoxo

Calgary expo; 1 and 2

For the first time, this years Calgary Comic Expo was 4 days instead of the usual 3.

Like last year, chad and I made a weekend trip out of it. Fortunately it's a reasonably short drive and we kept the whole trip inexpensive by staying in a hostel. 

Some people think it strange to stay in hostels so close to home, but I've really grown to like the atmosphere and the price certainly doesn't hurt. Less than $200 for both of us to stay for 3 nights. That's a win in my book. 

It also turned out to be one of the best hostels I've stayed in so far. Everything is included. Wifi, breakfast, sheets, towels, they do laundry for you, free international calling, free computer use, etc.. I would highly recommend it to anyone staying in Calgary. 

Wicked Hostels is downtown right across from the stampede grounds. 

Day one at the expo was just a "preview" day. Shorter hours, less guests and panels and so many fewer people. Little did we know, it is the perfect day to meet any of the guests, shop and find out where everything is. We didn't dress up for this day and I didn't even bring my camera. Bad blogger! 

Day 2 went from 12-7 and so we took advantage and slept in. Chad more so than me because my costume/hair/makeup takes significantly longer than him just getting dressed. 

When putting together a cosplay it's always good to take a test run with the whole costume on, and hair and makeup done. Partially to see how everything looks, but more so to see if anything will fall apart. 

We had already been out in costume to take pictures so I knew I was sturdy, but I left hair and makeup until the day of. I spent a good hour (at least!) in the washroom with a bunch of other girls all getting ready for the con as well. We bonded over hair and costumes. 

 

By the time we got to the expo, which was just across the street. It had been open for about 10-15 minutes and we were able to walk right in the door. This was by far one the best surprise of the day! At the previous cons we have been to, we have had to wait in line for several hours to get in. Winning again! 

Both of our costumes, my Arya Stark and Chads Sith Lord were received very well. Without sounding vain, I have to admit that I love when people ask to take my picture. I get such a feeling of accomplishment, like I've made something successful that people really like! 

 

Most of the day was spent browsing the booths, checking out art and getting pictures taken. We also spent a pretty decent amount of time checking out the celebrities that were there. Manu Bennett, Tom Felton, Sean Astin and so many more. I also spent a good chunk of time being a fan girl around the cosplay guests. I have a little crush on Jessica Nigri. 

Another awesome part of the convention and something we didn't have much of in Edmonton is the food. Before, the choices were greasy pizza and greasy burgers, now there are several local food trucks to choose from, ice cream, onigiri, a buffet, pizza, sandwiches, salads, fruit, smoothies and more. It was so nice to have more to choose from and that some options were even healthy! Let me just tell you, when all you eat is pizza for 3 days, it is not a good feeling and does not end well. 

Lastly for day 2, we went to see a panel by a UofC professor about how cosplay is important to the world and should be accepted as an art form. He thinks the world would be a better place if we played dress up everyday. I'm inclined to agree with him. He talked about how people can be anyone they want to be and the audience backed him up. People spoke up to say how in everyday life they are shy or socially awkward or just totally average, and then they put on a costume and that all goes away. Now they are heroes and not only ok, but happy to be in a room with thousands of other people. It's a great thing.
 

Anyway, more about the rest of the weekend will be up soon. 

xoxo

Arya Stark in the woods

Now that I've told you all about how I went about making the costume, I figured you may want to see the finished product all put together. 

First though, a few fun facts. 

-I wore purple rubber boots for these pictures, but I painted them brown. When they got wet they turned right back to purple

-I didn't actually end up wearing these pants to the con even though that's what I made them for.

 They fall down to much...

-We took these pictures off an extremely muddy dirt road beside a lake outside our city and found all kinds of bizarre things in the woods with us. 

Most bizarre of all was a newspaper box tied to the top of a tree..

Enjoy!

Not trying to look sexy and feeling a bit awkward, but I was actually trying to get the clothes dirty and worn looking. Chad just caught my cheeky smiling face. 

Did you spot the purple boots?

xoxo